In all honesty, Marco Bodt never thought death would feel so... painless. It always seemed so violent, especially in the army. He thought at least that being crushed between the teeth of a titan would hurt.
But the inevitable pain of his body being torn apart never came.
Well, he thought, maybe dying isn't so bad after all.
Then came the falling.
And the impact.
His body stung. He'd landed on the paved roof identical for every house in Trost, hard. The pain spread to each and every one of his nerves, stinging dully.
Hesitantly, he opened his eyes.
Across from him was a - a body. He froze, squeezed his eyes shut. They're dead. They're dead and he's alive... somehow.
Marco opened his eyes again. He sat up, slowly. The body of the titan that had grabbed him was sprawled across the street, steaming away. A soldier stood on the roof of the house across the street. The titan's blood steamed off their blades.
Bertolt, Reiner, and Annie were nowhere in sight. Marco winced as he sat up, every bone in pain. Could they really be titans? If Eren was a titan, then it made sense that others could be as well. But it made no sense for them to be the titans, the ones that caused the fall of Wall Maria. They were patriotic! They were every part loyal soldiers!
Well. Judging by their failed attempts to kill him, Marco guessed they were lying about that, too.
The soldier from the garrison helped Marco back out of titan territory.
"I almost died," he kept repeating.
"But you didn't," the soldier responded each time. The words felt surreal. As if he shouldn't have survived. And yet...
He recounted his story to his commanding officer. To his surviving comrades, later. But each time he neglected to tell them who stole his ODM gear and why. In his story, he fell unconscious before he saw anyone.
Marco hadn't lied when he told Bertolt and Reiner he would hear them out. Despite all they had admitted to - and what they had proven to him, directly, that day - Marco didn't want to think of his comrades as monsters. Not after the years of training side-by-side. There had to be more to it all than that. Because if Bertolt and Reiner couldn't be trusted, then who could be? Would Marco have to change everything he thought he knew about... everyone? No, there had to be more to it. There had to be some way to reason with them.
So Marco kept his mouth closed. And when he saw Bertolt again that evening, face like a corpse, he simply smiled.
"So glad I survived the battle!"
